The moment the words Lunar Queen left his mouth, Adrian knew he'd gone too far.
Elara's eyes were wide, disbelieving, and yet… somewhere deep in them was a flicker of something he recognized. Recognition.
He turned away before she could see more in his face than he wanted to give. "Get some sleep."
But even as he walked toward the door, his mind wasn't in the present—it was years in the past.
---
It had been the dead of winter the night he first smelled her bloodline.
Snow muffled the world in silence, but the howls had carried for miles—wolves in agony, rage, and despair. He had been a young Alpha then, barely holding his pack together against the warring families who ruled the underworld.
That night, he had followed the scent of smoke and burning fur to a place that should never have been touched by war: the Lunar Palace.
It stood at the heart of a hidden valley, cloaked by magic older than any pack could remember. Wolves whispered of it the way humans whispered of heaven—untouchable, sacred.
And yet… he had found it in ruins.
Stone towers crumbled into heaps. The great gates split apart like broken bones. The moon banners shredded and smeared with blood.
He still remembered stepping over the bodies—warriors who had sworn their lives to the Queen—until he reached the throne hall.
There, in the center of the devastation, lay the Queen herself.
Her silver hair was spread across the marble, her white gown soaked scarlet. A blade of black steel still protruded from her chest, its edges dripping with shadows instead of blood. Her eyes—pale and luminous—were still open, still locked on the moon above the shattered ceiling.
Beside her was a child's cradle. Empty.
He hadn't touched it. He hadn't dared.
The scent inside was faint but unforgettable—warm, alive, pure. The scent of a bloodline that could command every wolf under the moon.
And it was gone.
Before he could search further, the enemy had struck—wolves with eyes like pits of darkness and teeth dripping with black venom. He'd barely escaped with his life, his shoulder shredded and his left arm nearly useless for weeks afterward.
But he'd made himself a vow as he fled through the snow: If that child lived, I would find them. I would protect them, even if it meant burning the entire underworld to ash.
---
Adrian's jaw tightened as the memory faded.
Now, years later, the scent that had haunted him all that time was standing in his bedroom—wrapped in human skin, clueless of the crown that should have been hers.
He didn't know whether to lock her away from the world… or set the world on fire for her.
"Elara," he said without turning back, "the night will come when you'll have to choose between running and ruling."
Her voice was barely a whisper. "And if I don't want either?"
He looked over his shoulder, his golden eyes burning in the dim light.
"Then I'll choose for you."